Malignancy
by Cyanide Lemons
Summary: What would it take to sustain a soul?
1. Chapter 1

AN:/ Took an old idea and re-wrote it. Trying to do larger updates with more editing, so not going to get burned out by the schedule I had before.

Still writing for KHR and DA but I was really hating what I was writing before, so I don't know when the next update will be. Looking for betas.

* * *

The ghost shows up after his mother dies. At first, Ichigo thinks she is his mother, paled by death and angry about it, standing at the corner of the road and staring off into the distance. He stumbles to a stop and stares at her, heart in his throat.

But at a second glance it becomes obvious that the woman isn't his mother, looks almost nothing like her in fact, and he turns away in renewed grief. He can't even look at ghost right now, sees in their face the girl by the river, and the guilt and loathing chokes him.

So he runs away, back to his house and to his grieving father, who keeps pushing him more and more. Back to his small sisters, so tiny and new to the world.

He doesn't see the ghost following his retreat with sunken eyes.

* * *

The second time Ichigo sees the ghost, things have changed. He's made a vow, is determined to never be so weak or stupid again, to always know the difference between spirit and human.

He has sisters to protect, and a father who seems to be collapsing in on himself slowly.

So when he sees her, sitting silently on the stone fence running along his route to school, he doesn't turn away. There's a moment when, turning around the corner and seeing her there, he wishes his father could still walk him to school. But his sisters are more important, and he's no longer a little child who needs his hand held.

Instead, he walks by the woman with barely a glance. She looks the same as she did those weeks ago, pale and tired and angry looking. There's dried blood on her hands and a chain that pools out from her chest, but she looks alive in a way that only those newly dead do.

He has the urge to stop and ask her is she's ok, if she's seen another orange haired dead woman. To tell her that he killed his mother and he's looking for her.

He says nothing.

* * *

Tatsuki finds him after he starts skipping. He's been searching for the girl by the river, although he doesn't really know what would happen if he did find her.

"She's gone." Tatsuki says, standing behind him on the riverbank.

He doesn't answer.

"Unless…what they say about you is true." She continues, hesitantly. He turns and squints at her.

"What things?" He asks.

She sits down next to him and knocks her shoulders into his.

"That you see ghosts." She says finally, after a pause. He frowns and turns back to looking out at the river.

People have been talking about that ever since they noticed that he talks things that aren't there. He hunches in a little further into himself.

"…No." He says finally. It's almost true. In this case, he really isn't seeing ghosts. Even if he wishes he could.

Tatsuki nods. Then she punches his shoulder and hugs him, the sort of hug that starts off as a throw and ends with both of them clutching at the fabric of their shirts and sniffling.

"You're stupid. Skipping school, not showing up to karate. How are you ever going to get good enough to beat me being a sad lump by the river?" She says, rubbing damp eyes on his shirt.

He stifles his own cries into her neck.

"I'll be better." He says.

It's a promise.

* * *

School is hard. He's staying late at the dojo learning karate, learning how to be better, and he has to do his homework now late at night and alone. He's determined though, doesn't want to ask his father, who seems to go into hysterics now at every extreme.

He needs to be good. Needs to live up to his name and be a protector. That means making sure there's nothing his family has to worry about, including his own education.

One day, his sisters are going to be old enough go to middle school. He needs to be prepared to help them, since his father never seems to be.

So school's hard, but he succeeds. Rises up the class ranks by pure determination. It helps that for the most part it only takes one or two tries for him to understand something.

There's some jealousy from some of his classmates to deal with too. There have been comments before about his hair, about his weirdness, but now there are taunts about him supposedly cheating.

Tatsuki helps, but he can't let her fight all his battles. He thinks she understands.

He's been doing better at the dojo, but a few times now he's had to go home with bloody lips and torn homework.

His father starts surprising him with whacks over the head, calling it his fist of love. Sometimes Ichigo can see it coming and evades, but mostly all he ends up with is another bruise.

So the third time he sees the ghost, they both have blood on them and tired, angry looks. He's on his way back from the dojo, having convinced both his father and sensei that he can do the walk himself, when he stops and sees her.

He's honestly going to walk on by. He still hates ghosts, ignores them when he can and runs when he can't, but somehow, seeing his own emotions on her face has him stopping.

She's standing by the park, leaning against the swing set even though he knows she would just go through if she were actually putting any weight into it. Her arms are crossed but it doesn't do anything to hide the chain hanging from her chest.

He frowns at it, momentarily confused. He's seen the chains before, doesn't really understand them but knows that they come in different lengths, but this is the first time he's seen one so long. Most times they fade off after a certain length.

This one though, loops around and around her torso and then puddles at her feet, fading off only after it trails off a few feet away.

"Well? Are you just going to stare all day?" A dry voice asks, and Ichigo jumps, eyes skipping to her face. She has a raised eyebrow but there's no amusement in her face. At least, it doesn't seem that her constant anger is pointed towards him.

He turns away and tucks his hands in his pockets. There's no way he's going to talk to her.

"Talkative fellow, aren't you?" She says with a raspy laugh, before he catches her fading away in the corner of his eye. That's also something new, and he snaps his head back towards her.

Where she was leaning there's nothing but a slightly trampled patch of grass.

He frowns.

* * *

It takes him a while to realise that most ghosts don't move. Can't wander away from their site of death. That they can't touch things, or most people.

The ones that can usually mean bad business. Those are the ones with the short chains and the manic eyes, who claw at their own body like they claw at anything that comes close.

Those ghosts just confirm his own determination, his own hatred of spirits.

And yet, he thinks about the woman with her long chain and angry eyes and trampled grass. Thinks about her leaning against swings and sitting on walls.

He stops thinking about it.

* * *

Time passes.

His sisters grow fast, but it's hard to tell by the way he himself is growing. He's taller now, has a longer reach. In karate he's winning his matches more and more, although he still hasn't won one over Tatsuki.

He moves up a grade, shows a new batch of bullies that he might take a pounding but he can dish one out too, forgets for a time about ghosts and chains and the feeling when he saw the woman for the first time.

Doesn't forget his mother and her killer.

His father continues to go through extremes. There's now a poster of Ichigo's mother on the wall and that he'll collapse under at the slightest provocation. This seems like one of the more tolerable of habits.

The flying kicks are less tolerable.

* * *

He wakes up in the middle of the night to the sound of rattling. He blinks against the darkness and sits up, rubbing at his face. There's a weight on his chest and a stillness to the air, but it's the sound that really wakes him up.

At first, he thinks it's his window. He latched it before bed though, and it remains securely shut. His second thought is to his father, sneaking in the middle of the night to surprise him.

The sounds of the house are quiet though, and after careful listening he can hear his father's snores drifting from down the hall.

Something rattles again, and he pushes the blankets off and stands up. He has to stand on his tiptoes to see over the window ledge, but he can see the whole street when he does.

It's dark, the number on his clock ticking closer to 3am, but the street lamps on the road are shining strong. In the corner of one alley a shadow detaches from the wall.

The ghost slips into the street trailing her chain like a wedding veil, arms as full as she can make them and dragging her heavy burden. There's a sudden scream from far off.

He flinches away from the window.

The pressure in the air is increasing, and it tries to press him down. His mind is conjuring up for him that night at the riverbank, and he fights against the feeling to peer back out.

If the girl from the river is back, he wants to see her. He wants to stop her. He doesn't know if he is strong enough yet, but he will do it. Before his sisters or father get killed too.

Outside, the woman stops in the street and seems to be waiting patiently. She cradles her chains and stares off into the direction of the scream, still as the grave.

There's a trembling in his limbs that he thinks is first nerves, but turns out to be fine tremors in the ground. His clock vibrates off his desk.

One of the street lamps flicker, and from one breath to the next there's a monster standing in the street.

He's stuck, eyes wide at the large mass of — something.

It's scaly, an oily sheen to its white skin. There's a mass of arms and as it moves he realises with a sickening jolt that it has two heads, with ten eyes between them. It has a bone white mask on both heads, connected by sweeping horns that merge together, but the eyes all look out from different angles.

Ichigo clamps down on a scream.

The ghost woman says something that he can't hear, and the monster howls, raising one clawed hand to swipe at her.

He flinches away, covering his eyes out of instinct, but forces himself to look back right after. He is strong enough for this, and even though he doesn't like ghosts he also wants to know if he should go down and help, somehow.

It doesn't look he will need to though, since by the time he looks back again the monster is a bloody heap on the ground, a great gouge in the pavement bisecting where it is cut in two. A broken mask starts dissolving into the air.

Waving gently in the air the woman's chain drips red, fanning out from where she stands, unmoving. One end of the bloody limb is still stuck in the slowly disappearing flesh of the monster.

He stands staring at her, before whimpering from the room next door has him stumbling away from the window. His limbs are shaky, but he still has the strength to burst through his sisters' door with enough force that the door thumps against the wall and they wake up.

"…ni-chan?" Yuzu murmurs sleepily. He leans back against the wall and breathes in relief. He should have been in their room at the first hint of something strange, instead of uselessly watching from his window.

"Go back to sleep." He says softly, climbing into the bed that the two girls share. He pushes at Karin's spread limbs and settles at the headboard.

He's not sleepy anymore.

* * *

He avoids the woman after that.

* * *

Now that he is knows they're there, he sees the monster everywhere. He sees them in the missing spirits, in ghostly stains on the pavement, in flickering shadows.

Sometimes he feels their hungry eyes following him. There's an animal hunger to them, where as most ghost just feel sad and lonely.

He tries not to let it get to him, knowing that there's something out there hunting spirits. He knows from class that predators are important to ecosystems, and tries to think about it like that. Like population control.

Like ghosts aren't people.

He worries Tatsuki with the amount of time he spends on karate, his brain still stumbling over the monsters. For once he just wishes he had someone to talk to about all of this.

In his mind the girl from the river is superimposed over the woman with chains, and he can't figure out whether that means she is a monster too.

The only thing he does know is that he needs to get stronger. No matter what.

* * *

After a while Ichigo realises just like how the monsters hunt the ghosts, something is hunting the monsters. At first he thinks of the woman and her chain, and although he catches her hunting them, there's something else.

Something a little less precise.

Signs of battles that others ignore, far off cries in the distance, flashes of black in the sky.

He never does catch a look at what does it.

* * *

A month passes. Then two.

He sees plenty of the woman. She seems to have a territory she wanders, the borders of which he pass every day for school. Some days she wanders further, hunting one thing or another.

Some days the blood on her hands is fresher. Some days she limps away.

Some days she sees him watching her and smiles at him with teeth, pale and gaunt and still angry.

One day, he runs into her with blood on her lips and she stops to look at him, a strange look in her eyes.

He's on his way to school again, late because his sister's have been complaining about nightmares and he's been staying up late with them, and he doesn't have time for the ghost woman.

He tries to dodge her but she steps out in front of him, close enough to touch if she was alive. His heart jumps into his throat but he scowls at her anyways, refusing to back down.

"What?" He snaps. Her smile widens.

"I was wondering, but you do see, don't you? More then just shadows and shades, you see everything. No wonder hollows follow you like little ducklings, you must smell delicious." She says.

His nose wrinkles, and he backs up a little warily. That sounds like something they warned them at school about when talking about adult predators.

She just laughs at him.

"Be careful with who you let realise you can see, little boy. More then just the monsters in the dark will go after you then. For now, the rise in hollows you bring is a benefit for me, but should you bring something else…" Here her smile fades, and she looks just as angry as always.

He backs up even more, but she just drifts away without finishing. He watches her chain follow her until he can't see her anymore and shivers.

He can't tell if that was supposed to be a warning or a threat.

* * *

He's out with his sisters and father when Karin, hanging by his hand, stops and points to the end of the street. Yuzu and his father are looking at displays a few feet away, so he dutifully turns to see what she's pointing to.

"What's that?" She asks, squinting a little.

He squints himself, looking for what would have caught her attention, but seeing only the street and the bustle of the market. And a ghost.

"What's what?" He asks with apprehension. She tugs his hand with a huff and points again.

"That!" She is definitively pointing to the ghost. His heart leaps into his throat and his first instinct is joy. Someone else who sees the spirits, who he can talk to about it and not sound crazy. And then the fear sets in.

Karin will have to learn how to tell between living and dead. Will have to deal with teasing in school if she messes up, taunts about imaginary friends. Will have to deal with the dead's grasping loneliness.

Will have to deal with the monsters.

Ichigo tugs her hand down from where it's pointing and turns her around to face the other way.

"It's nothing. Come on, let's go see if dad will buy us ice-cream." He entices, hustling her away. She lets herself be distracted.

He thinks about what the woman in chains said, about monsters and sight. About the dangers of it.

Before it felt like something he could ignore, even if it did attract the monsters. He was the only one in danger.

But if seeing truly is dangerous, then now it's not just him who's in danger. And that's unacceptable.

* * *

He goes looking for the woman. It's not as hard as he originally thought it would be, since her territory is rather small, and he knows the borders of it rather well. He stops by at the end of classes, choosing to skip karate so he can walk the route he sees her wandering normally.

Ten minutes in and he sees her, sitting on the railing of a bridge on a quiet residential street. She's swinging her legs languidly, chains falling into the rushing water, but her expression is still frozen in rage.

"Well this is new." She says without looking at him as he walks up, stretching so he can hop on the curb of the railing. "Normally you run away as soon as you see me."

"I don't." He scowls at her. She laughs. He frowns harder, to which she just waves off.

"Well, what do you need from this poor damned soul?" She asks, hoping down from the railing and turning, chain rising up to provide a foothold so she can hang in the air in front of him.

Ichigo doesn't let her unnerve him, frowning at her malevolent amusement.

"The monsters. What are they?" He asks. He didn't want to know before, but now he needs to. Even if it means talking with the ghost woman.

"The hollows? They're the corrupted souls of the old dead. They feed off of those newly dead. Or naïve young boys with too much power and not enough sense." She says drifting closer.

"Seeing is power?" Ichigo asks sharply, a little confused. Seeing is seeing, it's never given him anything but trouble.

She laughs, a cackling, resounding sound that echoes across the waves.

"Oh child, did you think that seeing was all you could do? No, no. You must have been so lucky to have not been eaten before now." She pauses. "But that is not why you are here. You did not care about the power before. What changed?"

He grimaces and shuffles back. He's not about to answer that.

He goes to turn around but is stopped when the ghost flips over, chain coiling like a cobra around him and forcing him still.

"Oh no, you can't leave now that you are talking to me! It gets so dreadfully boring here without any company." She says, circling him as he struggles to jerk his legs out.

"Let me go! I was just curious." He yells, pulling at the thick links.

"Hmm. I don't think so, you're not one to do something out of pure academic interest, are you? No, it would have to be a personal reason. But not, I expect, a personal power issue." She says, watching him.

He frowns at her and tugs one last time at the chain.

"You want to be powerful, yes? But not for purely selfish means. So a relative, or a friend?" She continues, laughing delightedly when he flinches.

"You don't have to worry about me knowing about your dear loved ones. I have no use for those of flesh and blood." She says with a bloody smile, leaning her head on one hand.

He squints at her in suspicion and bites his lips. He doesn't trust her, doesn't want to take the risk.

"I can tell you more, I can tell you how to defend yourself and others from the hollows. But only if you tell me." She coaxes, circling him.

He huffs.

"My sister is starting to see." Ichigo says finally, following her with distrustful eyes.

"Oho, now that is a pickle! I'm assuming by your big brother act that she's younger? Which would mean she also will grow into quite the powerhouse one day. No wonder this side of town is so full of reiatsu." She laughs, loosening the chain so he can step out.

"Reiatsu?" He asks, shifting away but keeping his back straight. He doesn't want to get caught again.

"Spiritual energy. It's what allows you to see spirits. It is also what allows you to fight them, if you are strong enough." She says. She taps on finger to her lips and smiles.

"It is unusual for a human to be able to use it before their deaths, and even spirits need age and experience to be able to have any large amount."

He doesn't respond because he spots someone coming their way, and doesn't want to deal with someone thinking he's talking to air. The ghost bares her teeth at the incoming person and shifts down so she's standing on the ground bare foot.

"Come on, I know a place a little more deserted then this that we can talk. I can even show you some tricks to help with that power of yours, for a price." She says, tugging a tuff of his hair and walking away as he splutters.

He blinks at her and then runs to catch up.

The man they pass is wearing a dark coat and an odd striped hat. For some reason the man is wearing geta sandals and using a cane, even though he doesn't look old enough for that sort of thing. When he sees Ichigo he slows to a stop.

The man blinks at him, and for a second it looks almost like his eyes flicker towards the ghost before they pass him.

* * *

They don't have to go far, this side of town being as disserted as it is. For a second he wonders if he is walking next to the reason for that. But then again, he's never seen the ghost woman attack living humans, only the monsters.

She stops in the park that they first really interacted in, by the swing set he found her leaning on.

"Now if anyone hears you talking to thin air they'll think you're just playing." She says, with a tone of wry frustration.

He huffs, and crosses his arms.

"Impatient are you?" She says, using her chain to hook onto the swing's bar and fashioning a sort of makeshift swing between the existing ones. It means she's passing through the bar in the middle of the swing set as she does so, but that doesn't seem to be bothering her.

He wonders if she can control what she is able to touch, or if it's restricted to certain things.

"I just need to know how to keep my sister safe." He says.

"Oh child, you'll learn that is impossible, even if she didn't have the power of sight. The world is dangerous to humans, young girls even more so." She replies, ignoring his frown.

"But as for Hollows, I think I can help you there." She says with a grin. It sends shivers down his spine for some reason, looks for a second similar to the hungry grins of the masked monsters.

"I just need you to do me a little favour."


	2. Chapter 2

AN:/ Special thanks to Tsurai for beta-ing this chapter.

* * *

She refuses to say what she wants from him.

"It will be a nice surprise for later," she grins, shark like.

Ichigo frowns, glaring at her.

"Besides, I need you to be able to protect yourself first. Can't have you die before the stage is set," she continues, jumping off of the swing to kick up a cloud of dust.

"That doesn't sound promising," he mutters. Her eyes glint.

"But first! Names!" she says, ignoring him. She taps her chest, over the chain, and bows.

"My name is ~*#*^`." The sound that makes up her name is unidentifiable. Somewhere in between the muffled sound of crashing waves and desert wind.

He squints at her.

"That's not a name," he says. He gets another shark tooth grin in response.

"You can call me Saki," she says, sitting down in the sand of the playground and pulling him down with her by his wrist.

He yelps and glares, but stays where she puts him reluctantly.

"…That doesn't suit you at all," he complains, rubbing his wrist

"Oh? What would you suggest?" she asks with a foreboding look on her face. He stays silent.

"Mm, that's what I thought. Now's where you tell me yours," she says with a sharp smile.

"…Kurosaki Ichigo," he mutters.

Saki pauses, staring at him for a second with an odd look on her face, before her smile returns sharper than before. Ichigo thinks for one minute that her face might actually crack in two.

"Ichigo-kun, is it? Then this is your first lesson." He gets only a second of warning before the chain that had been slowly fanning out on the ground strikes.

He blinks and chokes, staring wide eyed at the metal suddenly sticking out of his chest.

"Don't worry," Saki says with a hungry look. "This won't hurt at all."

* * *

There's a sensation of disconnect between one breath and the next, before he blinks again.

"Huh," he says, touching the chain. "It actually doesn't"

Saki snorts, leaning back.

"It's made out of reishi, it only affects physical matter if I concentrate," she shrugs. "This is really only to trick your brain into thinking it's dead, so that I can analyse where exactly you are getting your power from."

She eyes him for a second.

"Normally, this would also be what breaks the block on innate power, but something got to that long before me," she continues.

Ichigo looks up, tugging once on the chain sticking out of his chest and frowning.

"What does it matter? Also, get this out." The look on his face could almost be described as petulant.

"I can't teach you how to use something if I don't know what it is," Saki says with an arched brow, before tugging her chain back out of his chest and ignoring his grossed out expression.

Ichigo pats his chest and lets his face slide back into a glare. Saki waves a hand negligently.

"Well, how do you feel?" she asks, standing up. He stares at her.

"How I…?" he mutters, before gasping and bending over his knees. She watches him grasp his chest with an expressionless face.

"What—" he asks, as he tries to catch his breath. There's sparks in the corners of his vision, and although he wouldn't call it pain, there's definitively something bursting through his chest. "What is this?"

"You didn't expect me give you all the answers, did you? Figure it out, experiment. When you have, come back to me and I'll unlock the next block," she says, starting to walk away.

He watches her go; hand on his heart and pin pricks on his skin.

* * *

He gets home early, shivering. Isshin takes one look at him and throws himself at his wife's poster.

"Masaki-chan! Our boy has caught some horrible disease! What if it's terminal? We need to call the doctor!" he sobs.

"You _are_ a doctor, old man," Ichigo says, knocking his shoes off and padding past the embarrassing sight of his father.

"Oh right," Isshin says. "Come here into your loving father's, and also your doctor's, arms."

He goes for a hug and Ichigo jumps away, scowling.

"No way," he mutters, ducking into the kitchen where Karin and Yuzu are doing homework.

"Welcome back, Ichigo." Yuzu smiles. She has a neat stack of papers at her elbow, most of which seem to be done.

"I'm home." He swings his bag onto the table and slumps into his chair.

"Yo, Ichi," Karin says through a mumble, chewing on her pencil. Her papers are much more disorganised, and he sees a soccer club form sticking out of the top. He nods at her before letting his head thump onto the table.

"Are you not feeling well?" Yuzu asks worriedly, small hand checking his forehead. He grunts.

"Got a headache," he says finally, bending in face of his sister's worry.

He can feel, like some overused limb, the edges of something or another brushing up against everything else in the house. His sisters are small pinpricks on this other sense, like little gravity wells drawing his attention.

His father feels muted, wrapped in thick wool.

From the things in the house he mostly only feels echoes, reflected echoes of him and his sisters.

It will take a while to get used to.

He still doesn't understand how this is supposed to help. Sure, now he can keep tabs on his sisters without having to actually be looking at them, but it feels like he's just losing control instead of mastering whatever power he supposedly has.

The headache doesn't help.

"Here," Yuzu says softly, holding out a mug to him and two little pills.

He rubs his face and tries to smile at her. It makes him ache sometimes to see his small sisters so mature.

"Thanks."

* * *

He goes to bed that night and has strange dreams. There's a fuzzy and white landscape, and everything feels sideways and wrong. Voices from somewhere keep calling him, but the words fizz away before he can quite catch them.

When he wakes up, he stares at the ceiling and can't really see it. There's a strange white glow over everything, before he blinks and it's gone.

"What…" he mumbles, rubbing his eyes.

"Ohhh, that's some pretty intense after-burn," a voice says to his right, and he ends up tangled in his blankets as he tries to twist around.

Saki floats languidly near his window, looking for all sense and purposes as if she had curled up to soak up the morning sun. For some reason, the window is open, even though he knows he had it latched last night.

"What are you doing here?" he hisses, tugging the blankets until he can get his legs free and sit up. "I thought I was supposed to be working things out on my own?"

Her face doesn't look any different than any of the other times he's seen her, but as he squints at her backlit by the sun, he can't help but think that her anger seems a little more muted. Less desperate.

"Mmm, yes. But I was curious as to where you lived," she says, with her shark smirk.

He frowns at her.

"Why would— " his eyes widen. "Karin!"

He scrambles to stand and goes to do—something, but she just waves her hands negligently and shrugs.

"Oh, was that the child's name? Don't fret; I did nothing but peek into her dreams. I admit, I had forgotten that that was something you humans need to do," she says.

He pauses.

"Dream?" Ichigo asks, slowly.

"Sleep," she responds wryly. "Ghosts can neither sleep nor dream."

From down the hall Ichigo can hear his father's snoring abruptly stop, and he jerks his head around in suspicion. There's silence for a few seconds and then the sound of quiet footsteps.

"And that is my sign to leave," Saki says. "I'll see you when you figure out how to do more then blindly see."

And then she's gone.

Ichigo steps aside just as his father kicks open the door, sailing through the small room and out the open window. There's a crash from outside and then Isshin's voice yells out.

"10/10 landing!"

Ichigo just shakes his head and starts getting ready for school.

* * *

The next few days are strange. He keeps getting double vision in places he really shouldn't be. Most of the time it doesn't seem to have anything to do with ghosts or hollows, blinds him a few times when he's at school or at home.

He can't place why exactly certain people make the hair on the back of his neck prick either, why sometimes there's a certain overlay when he looks at them, and he's almost seeing…more.

A few of his classmates seem to be especially prone to this; a quiet bespectacled boy with a severe look to his face in particular makes it almost impossible to ignore.

The other thing that seems to be happening is that for once, ghosts are actively avoiding him. Where as before they seemed to be all too willing to follow him and complain about the after life to him, begging for help, now they take one look at him and run away.

This would be a preferred thing, except he can't figure out why. It just ends up pissing him off.

He, in a fit of too much action movie watching, tries to figure out what exactly Saki meant by "more than blindly seeing" by punching things in abandoned forest clearings.

So far that has given him nothing but scrapped knuckles and a father crying about delinquency.

Which Ichigo is not, despite the boys with bleach blond hair and piercings trying to corner him after school. There's one in particular who seems to hate his guts, solely on the fact that he has the audacity to have orange hair and not be a subordinate.

Tatsuki finds this hilarious.

"Have you told them it's natural?" she asks with a grin as they make their way towards to dojo. It's getting colder now, autumn falling into spring with a series of small cold snaps, so they have taken to walking together in hopes that conversation will make the walk go faster.

"Not that it would help, even if they did believe me, they would just go after me for being mixed, even though I'm not," he says with snort, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth.

He walked away from that tussle with only a small cut on his lip, and there's a certain amount of pride to be had in the idea that the other boys weren't as lucky.

But that doesn't make him a delinquent.

"Well, at least you should have some peace and quiet now," Tatsuki says with a grin, slugging him on the arm with enough force to unbalance him.

"Geeze, learn to control your strength, woman," Ichigo complains, rubbing his arm.

"What's the fun in that?" she laughs.

There's a pause in conversation as they cross a road, dodging mothers with groceries and people in suits and on phones.

"Wow, you would think it would be less busy at this time of— What's that?" Tatsuki stops. Ichigo blinks and then frowns, eyes flickering around.

He feels something tingle in the back of his head, and he swings around, hand going for— something.

From far off there's the sound of an animalistic roar.

"I'm sure I just heard something," Tatsuki says, puzzled. Ichigo turns wide eyes her way.

What was it with the women in his life suddenly gaining spiritual power?

Another roar burst out, closer this time, and Ichigo tenses.

"It's probably nothing. Come on, we're gonna be late," he says, tugging on her arm and trying to get her to move. The last thing he needs is to try to fight one of the monsters while trying to protect Tatsuki. He's not even sure that he could fight one of them.

"No really, I thought I heard something," she says, letting herself be tugged away. Ichigo just grits his teeth.

It can't be just his imagination that the monsters—hollows—are becoming more frequent. And even though he keeps seeing a dark blur chasing them, more and more it looks like whoever is fighting them is _losing._

The only area that he's noticed free of them is Saki's territory, but that's such a small stretch of land anyways.

"It was probably a car alarm," Ichigo finally says, after a too long pause. He's trying to concentrate on hearing if the roaring is getting closer.

He's also, for some reason, extremely hungry.

They make it to the dojo without anymore weird noises, and Ichigo muffles a sigh of relief.

* * *

A week passes.

The hunger stays.

He's eating a lot and not gaining any weight. His father makes noises of him going through a growth spurt, and Tatsuki laughs at him in disgust when he starts bringing two bentos to school, but it never abates.

The weird feeling he gets from his classmates and family only grows. Soon he's stopping in the middle of the street, eyes following random strangers due to a prickling along his skin.

A few times, some of them will stare back at him.

It's like suddenly being part of some exclusive club with a built in password. Something in him sits up and takes notice, going, "Hey you? I know you."

The headaches come and go, getting worse the more people he becomes aware of. A few times he's had to just lay down in his bed with the lights off and breathe.

Saki, when she comes by, smiles with blood in her teeth and says it will pass. That growth without pain is impossible. He's not sure he believes her.

He is thinking he might be starting to understand what she meant when it comes to not blindly seeing. He's starting to think that maybe seeing the ghosts and hollows is only the starting point.

He's sitting on the school roof, trying to stretch the sense that makes him notice certain people, when he feels it.

He has his eyes closed, lying back against the cool concrete, trying to separate the different little pinpricks of people in his mind. He almost has a mental map, going a few floors down and about a building across, of little flame people walking around.

A cool light that feels like the boy in his class with glasses, the energetic pulse of Keigo and the much more serene one of Mizuiro. There's a warm bounce of light that feels unfamiliar, and a slow current that feels like it's a second away from bursting out. These are the strongest ones, the ones he can see with almost perfect clarity.

There's others though; a few pricks of other flames, fuzzy and indistinguishable, and he frowns. There's a cool smooth barrier preventing him from truly grasping them. Trying to reach farther is futile, the map slipping out of his mental fingers as he tries, and trying to concentrate on one single flame just makes his head hurt.

Finally, frustration colouring his senses, he _pushes,_ trying to force his way through. Hurt blossoms through his head and he gasps, opening his eyes in shock. There's a sharp feeling in his heart, grinding against his ribs, but through the blurry wetness in his eyes he smiles.

Floating gently through the air are streaks of colour, a haze of echoes of people. Most of it seems to an off white, footprints where thousands of students have walked before. A few are coloured with red or black. A very few other's are some other combination.

And there, floating gently up from his chest, is a ribbon of faded red.

"So you finally did it. And here I thought I would have to wait months," a voice says in his ear, and he yelps. The streaks of colour vanish, and his headache returns from where it had been hanging behind his eyes.

Saki smiles at him from her coil of chain, hanging upside down, hair tumbling down and almost falling into Ichigo's mouth.

"What—Saki!" he yells, pushing her away and rubbing his head.

"Good job, you are now able to sense spirit particles," she says, patting his head condescendingly. He can't help but notice that she seems downright cheerful, something that makes him extremely nervous.

The blood covering her white dress doesn't help.

"Is that what I was doing?" he asks suspiciously, edging away so he can sit and not have to cross his eyes to see her.

"Mm, yep. You could see beings that are rich in reiryoku, but you were completely ignorant of your own. The easiest fix was to just force you to see reishi at its base level. Of course, in normal souls this would take years of training, so I'm happy to see your bullheadedness came through," Saki says.

"Years!?" Ichigo yelps, thinking back to the weeks that seemed to crawl by, and the days of headaches and balance problems. Years of that would have been torture.

"Most people also aren't sitting on an impossible amount of reiryoku either though," she says with a shrug. "Of course, seeing if you can do anything with that now is going to be a problem."

He frowns at her.

"You still haven't told me how that's supposed to help me fight hollows. This sort of thing seems to just be good for running away," he says, crossing his arms.

Saki stares at him for a second before baring her teeth.

"How old are you kid?" she asks instead of answering, and Ichigo glares.

"Ten," he forces out, feeling the rush of heat in his cheeks that always accompanies adults looking down on him.

Saki hums.

"So bloodthirsty already. Maybe I should have you meditating so that you can learn some patience," she says, tapping her lips.

He goes to answer, maybe to complain that he doesn't need patience, but she just waves him away. That seems to be a thing of hers, he notes with displeasure.

"But yes, the next step should quench the sadist in you. Being able to sense reishi means you can then turn it into reiatsu, which can be used to fight. Or use plain reishi as a weapon. Or simply overpower weaker souls with pure reiryoku."

She holds out a hand and, with a negligent amount of effort, gathers up what looks to Ichigo like little fireflies into a small ball. It starts to glow until, with a small hiss of air, she's holding what looks like a small crossbow.

He stares at it for a second, brain tripping over the sight, before his eyes find hers with scepticism.

What's something that small supposed to do against the giant monsters who want to eat his soul?

She huffs, and aims out at the courtyard. A glowing arrow materialises in the small weapon, and she grins.

The crossbow fires with a high pitch whistle, burning through the metal chain fence that encircles the roof. Displaced air sings as the bolt hits the far soccer field. Dust and wind go flying up as an explosion craters the previously immaculate lawn, and Ichigo's mind blanks as the shockwave hits them.

Some distant part of him wonders who's going to pay for the damages.

"Powerful enough for you?" Saki asks, making the crossbow disappear. He turns wide eyes her way.

"That was—" he starts.

"Awesome? I know. And you aren't restricted to just big explosions either. You want any kind of weapon for the job? Enough imagination and practice and you can make it," she preens, staring out at the destruction.

"Why don't you use that more often?" Ichigo demands. So far he had just seen her fight with the chains, which appear to be a lot weaker then what she just showed him.

"Oh, well, these here are kinda special," Saki says, lifting one link of chain thoughtfully. "I kinda need to kill things with them so I have a stable energy supply. The spirit arrows destroy the reishi in things completely, so it's mostly useless for me."

He stares at her.

"You mean you use the chains to eat things," he says slowly.

Saki grins at him with her shark smile and shrugs.

"I'm special like that. Don't worry, what I'm doing to you is not going to be anyway as bad as what they did to me."

Before he can ask, or really react at all, the weight of hundreds of heavy chain links go slamming into his back and he goes flying.

The chain of the fence groans and bends, and Ichigo has just enough time to watch Saki's grin widen until it spreads from one ear to the other, before he and the fence go plummeting down.

The ground comes up to meet him.

* * *

There's a split, and then a crack, and Ichigo opens eyes to see blue sky. White clouds drift pass.

There's confusion for a few seconds, since he's sure for a second that the sky had been clear when he went up to the roof, before memory reinserts itself.

"Shit!" he yelps, springing up and clasping a hand to his chest. Saki pushed him off the roof. After destroying the soccer field.

He's not in the courtyard though, or in the hospital. For second he worries he's dead, but he forces that thought away.

"So you've come," a voice says behind him, and he turns.

There's a dark blur standing on the side of a ruined skyscraper. Ichigo squints, but no matter how he looks he can't make out the actual features of whoever is standing there.

"What?" he asks, realising for the first time that he's lying on what appears to be the roof of one of many identical offices. Everything is white and black and blue sky.

"This is earlier than expected," the voice continues. "Why are you here?"

Ichigo frowns.

"That's what I want to know," he says, rubbing his face. What exactly did Saki do?

"You are searching for power. But you do not know why you are searching for it?" the voice asks.

"I need to protect my sisters," Ichigo says, instantly. The wavy dark blur pauses.

"You do not know who I am, do you?" it says finally, something in its tone almost amused.

Ichigo squints.

"A…very cryptic black cloud?" he asks. He's getting tired of people knowing more than he does.

From somewhere in the grey reflections of the towers all around him he hears laughter.

"I suppose that is the best I should hope for at such an age. Very well, if you seek power to protect, I shall give it to you," the voice says, before disappearing.

"Wait!" Ichigo yells, pushing up to his feet, "What does that even mean? How do I get out of here?"

His only answer is the wind.

* * *

Ishida Uryū stares at the hole in the ground, the scrambling students and teachers, the flashing lights of police cars and ambulances. The smoke from the explosion is mostly dissipated, and with it he is able to see quite clearly the arcs of reishi sparking from the ground.

He recognises Heilig Pfeil when he sees it.


	3. Chapter 3

Ichigo wakes up in an ambulance. There's a moment of disorientation, as he lies there blinking fuzzily up at a masked face.

"—can you hear me?" A voice asks, and Ichigo struggles to focus on them. His throat feels like he swallowed a roll of sandpaper, so he goes for a nod instead.

Everything feels muted.

A light is shoved into his eyes, and he protests weakly, trying to squirm away.

"Looks like the painkillers are working," the voice tells someone outside of his line of sight, amused.

Ichigo scowls, before the sentence actually registers. Painkillers? Why would he need painkillers?

"Kurosaki-kun, you were caught in an accident. There's no reason to worry, you just have a little knock on the head. We are on route to Karakura Hospital right now so that the doctor's can take a look and make sure everything is alright. Do you have parents we can contact?" the voice asks.

Ichigo frowns, confused. Considering the height he fell off the building at, he would think he would have a lot more than just a knock on the head. And what sort of accident did he supposedly get caught up in?

Saki's arrow, he remembers.

"Kurosaki-kun?" the voice prompts.

"My dad, he's a doctor," he mumbles, before trying to force his eyes back open, "at Kurosaki Clinic."

"Thank you, we'll have him meet us at the hospital ok? You just relax and let the painkillers work. I'm going to have to ask you to stay awake for a while though."

Ichigo blinks up at the ceiling of the ambulance and frowns some more. A face wavers in and out of his line of sight.

"Why don't you tell me what you remember before the accident? We can play a little memory game to keep you awake," one of the masks says.

He scowls. If there's one thing he hates it's adults treating him like a little kid. It's going to be a long ambulance ride.

—

Isshin bursts in the hospital waiting room with Karin and Yuzu clasped in his arms and skids to a stop in front of the front desk. There's a strained smile on his face, due in part because the girls are getting to be too big to carry.

"Kurosaki-san? Ichida-sensei called ahead for you, your son is in room 302," the nurse at the desk says before he can catch his breath and ask.

There's a second where he is still and silent, looking dead serious for the first time, before the pulling on his sleeve by Karin has him moving again.

"Thank you!" he calls out, dashing out of the room.

"No running in the halls!" the nurse yells back, before sighing.

Isshin slows to a quick walk, lifting his daughters a little higher in his arms as he rounds the corner towards the elevators.

"Is Ichi-nii ok?" Yuzu asks him, pulling on his sleeve and turning wide eyes his way. Her adorableness has him melting, calming some of the frantic energy bubbling up in his muscles.

"Of course! Your brother is a strong boy, his head is hard enough to crack concrete!" he cries.

"Liar!" Karin yells, squirming.

"You doubt your wonderful, honest, intelligent father?" Isshin adopts a wounded expression.

"For good reason," a voice says in front of them, and father and children look up.

While they had been talking they had made it to the 3rd floor, where a man in a white overcoat stands to greet them.

Ichida Ryūken is an intimidating man, with a severe look upon his face. His expression doesn't even waver when faced with two adorable children.

"Ryūken!" Isshin yells with a grin, putting down the two girls so that he can face the other man on more equal ground. Karin and Yuzu grab onto his hands immediately after touching down.

"Kurosaki," Ryūken returns, nose wrinkling. He inclines his head and heads down the hallway.

They follow him into a single occupant room, where a nurse is fiddling with Ichigo's chart. Upon seeing the doctor and his entourage, she bows and leaves.

"Ichi-nii!" Karin cries, tugging out of her father's grip and bounding towards the bed. Yuzu follows a little more sedately. Both girls clamber on the bed and cuddle up to their bleary brother.

"I need to talk to you," Ryūken says in an undertone, grabbing onto Isshin's arm as he goes to follow. Isshin nods.

"Be good now! I'm going to talk to the nice doctor right outside, ok?" he calls to the siblings, getting a few waves from the girls and a frown from Ichigo.

Outside, he turns to Ryūken and waits. His seriousness might seem out of character to anyone else, but to the other man it is anticipated. They only ever seem to meet when things go wrong.

"The explosion that supposedly destroyed the middle school field was done by a spirit arrow," Ryūken finally says, after a few seconds of silence.

Isshin starts, eyes widening before narrowing.

"I would say that's impossible but…"

Ryūken nods.

"It is not the first time someone has survived when otherwise thought dead. The only living Quincies I know of are in my family, but if someone out there is resurfacing…" he trails off.

"And if the shinigami find out it could jeopardise the whole of Karakura," Isshin finishes, grim.

"That's not all. Take a look at this," Ryūken reaches into his pocket and brings out a cell phone, flipping it up and showing Isshin a photo saved on it.

Karakura middle school looks like it has been plunged into a war zone, smoke and police cars obscuring most of the frame. Off to the side of most of the commotion, a cracked sidewalk is just visible, a smoking fence crumpled in a heap next to it.

"That's where your son was found. He walked away from that with only a mild concussion, despite seemingly having smashed into the pavement hard enough to create a foot long fissure. The paramedics are blaming it on the explosion, but I don't think that was the cause. The fence belongs to the school roof, and it has a hole that looks a lot like one caused by a spirit arrow."

"You think he's being targeted?" Isshin asks, angling the phone closer.

"The question is, by who?" Ryūken finishes.

—

Ichigo endures his sisters' fussing and ignores the warm glow in his chest. He's mostly frustrated that he can't get up and get moving, but every time he tries either a nurse or his father come in and tucks him back into the hospital bed.

He's fine, really. He shouldn't even still be in the hospital, but it turns out that all the doctors and nurses know his father, so there's some preferential treatment going on.

"Aww, that's adorable," a voice says right next to his ear, and he twitches.

Saki smiles her shark smile at him, floating by the edge of the bed. Karin and Yuzu luckily are mostly asleep, cuddled up and snoring. His father left a while to talk to the doctor and hasn't come back.

"What was that?" he hisses.

Saki opens her eyes wide, trying to appear innocent.

"What was what?" she says, flipping upside down.

"Pushing me off the roof! The, the weird white office buildings!" He flings an arm out and almost knocks the cup off the side table. It makes a dull thump.

Both of them pause, waiting to see if anyone heard it, before Ichigo turns back to the ghost and scowls.

"Oh that," Saki says with a giggle, waving him away, "you're talking like a little death ever HURT ANYONE!" Her voice rises until she's looming over him, baring sharp teeth at his startled eyes.

"But I digress. You survived anyways, and you've even successively talked with your power! Congratulations, you are one step closer to being able to protect your cute little family."

Ichigo lowers his shoulders, having hunched into himself at her anger. He swallows and inches away.

"That shadow then, that was my power?" He asks, thinking back to the voice in the grey world.

"Yep, as you grow you should be able to actually see and hear it more clearly, but for now it is only a little glimmer. Get big and strong, drink your milk, and who knows how powerful it will get," she says, tugging at his hair, ignoring his attempts to bat her hands away.

"What's next then?" he complains, squirming away.

Saki puts her hands on her hips and hums.

"Let's see. You are aware of Reishi now, and you have met your spiritual power… Really, the next step would be to use it, wouldn't it? You should come by my park sometime, I'll get you set up with some fun games…" she trails off and winks at him, fading into smoke.

The door slams open, and his father rushes in.

"Ichiiiigoooo~"

—

Tatsuki comes up to the Kurosaki house and frowns at the dark windows. Ichigo has been absent for a few days now, and rumours are it has something to do with the explosion that destroyed the soccer pitch. Some are even saying he did it himself, although where they thought he would get enough explosives is a mystery.

She's rather put out that he hasn't bothered telling her he was in the hospital, and she's not about to let that go.

She's just about to knock on the door and check if anyone's home, when a muffled thump has her looking up. Leaning out of a second story window, Ichigo doesn't seem to notice her. He's struggling with a piece of shirt caught in the corner of the latch, but it is immediately apparent that he was in the middle of jumping out.

"Ichigo! What are you doing?" Tatsuki calls up, turning away from the door. Wide eyes swing her way.

"SHHH! They'll hear you," he hisses back, finally yanking the fabric out.

"Who?" she asks, a little befuddled by his urgency.

"Goat dad and the girls." He hops onto the sill and dangles his legs down. Tatsuki steps forward, a protest forming on her lips.

"They've been fussing all over me since the hospital. It's been crazy." With practiced ease he shuts the window and clambers down, feet finding purchase on the drain running up the house.

Tatsuki watches him with wide eyes.

"Of course they are! You idiot, you're still injured," she hisses as his feet hit the ground and he stands on the grass, patting his knees.

Ichigo rolls his eyes.

"Not really. I wasn't even that close to the blast," he shrugs, shoving his hands into his pockets.

She eyes him suspiciously, but doesn't bother contesting him. She catches his eyes drifting towards the road and crosses her arms.

"Where were you even going to go? It's getting late," she ignores her own hypocrisy in being out late.

Ichigo freezes.

"Ichigo…" Tatsuki draws close to him and grabs on to one of his arms when it looks like he's about to bolt.

"Nowhere, I was just going for a walk," he says sullenly, pulling on her grip. She's stronger though, so it doesn't do anything.

"I don't believe you, and I think, if you don't tell me I'm going to march right up to that door and ring the bell," she hisses, eyes narrowed. Ichigo glares.

"Don't you dare," he grinds out, before taking a breath and glancing over to the house. He calms down a little, looking conflicted, before his eyes find hers again. She almost takes a step back at the look in his eyes.

"Ok, ok. You can come with, but you have to promise not to talk about what you see," he finally forces out, looking defeated.

Tatsuki lets go and frowns.

"If you're into something dangerous…" she trails off. Ichigo shakes his head.

"I'm not saying anything until you promise me you won't say tell anyone," he says, pulling away.

Tatsuki stares at him for a few seconds, thinking, before nodding. If that's what it takes, she's not about to let her friend go off to do who knows what by himself.

Ichigo nods back and takes one last look at the quiet house.

"Ok, follow me."

—

The two friends walk through the slowly darkening evening, the air still and silent in anticipation. Tatsuki keeps a wary eye on Ichigo, who seems to be wavering between regretting bringing her along and determination.

The two are quiet for the most part, but it doesn't take long for them to arrive at their destination.

The empty park looks menacing in the lowering light, rusted swing set slowly moving with the wind and abandoned play structures jutting out eerily.

"This is where you wanted to go?" Tatsuki asks slowly, turning around in a circle. Besides her, Ichigo snorts.

"I didn't pick it," he grumbles. She raises an eyebrow and him and starts to open her mouth, but is interrupted by a noise.

"Oh, what's this?" a voice asks behind them. Tatsuki yelps and whirls around.

Saki hangs in the air grinning menacingly at them. Tatsuki's wide eyes look onto her bloody dress, flicker down to her bare feet hovering over the ground, jump back up to the coil of chain jutting out of her chest.

"What—" she says, scrambling back. Ichigo reaches out and steadies her.

"Oho, if it isn't another Reishi sensitive. You seem to be collecting them, Ichi-kun," Saki crows, floating closer. She circles the two children and hums in thought, grin firmly plastered over her face and only widening at Tatsuki's look of fear.

"Tatsuki is stronger than me, but she doesn't know about the monsters," Ichigo says, face serious, "she'll get hurt if she can't fight back."

His friend's wide eyes swing his way.

"I thought you said you couldn't see ghosts!" she cries, her voice high and shaky. Ichigo winces.

"I—it didn't matter before. But, it's dangerous to be able to see if you don't know what's going on," he mumbles, head drooping. She shakes her head in confusion, bringing up a hand to knuckle at her eyes.

"But, I've never seen a ghost before?!" her voice rings out, and Ichigo flinches.

"Sometimes, sometimes it's hard to tell. You don't realise they are ghosts, and it can get you in trouble." His mind is on that night long ago, and his heart aches at her confusion.

Saki cackles.

"Oh, this is precious. I assume you want me to teach her as well? I might, but it will cost you." She taps a finger on her lips and grins. In the setting sun, her shadow lengthens and stretches menacingly.

Ichigo glares, but it is Tatsuki who pushes forward.

"I don't—I don't know what's going on here. What danger there is supposed to be, but if there's a price for anything, I should be the one paying it."

Saki's eyes narrow, and she hums. There's a glint in her eyes that has Ichigo nervous, but he steps up so he's standing next to his friend anyways. Saki smiles.

"A commendable attitude, and one that will serve you well if you do end up training under me. Alright, I had prepared something earlier for my original student, but I suppose I can modify my plans for both of you," she says slowly, grin widening. "Come, follow me, little children."

She touches down to the ground and walks further into the park, towards where a dense forest starts. It's the heart of her territory, and Ichigo has never been. He gulps.

"What is going on?" Tatsuki hisses at him.

"I'll explain it later, ok? It's better to not keep her waiting. C'mon." He pulls on her arm and jogs to catch up with the ghost.

They struggle through the thick bushes, shirts catching in the sharp thorns of the plants, and find themselves in a confusing twist of branches. There's no path, but the low glow of Saki's incorporeal form lights the way.

"Don't get lost!" she yells back at them with a laugh, and both of them run to catch up.

The forest looks sinister, and Ichigo thinks not for the first time that maybe there's some truth to all the stories of hauntings. In the shadows he's sure he sees eyes. Tatsuki draws closer to him and rubs her arms.

"I can't believe you lied to me," she hisses, anger pushing through her fear. Ichigo dreads the spars he's going to have to deal with at karate.

"I didn't think it would matter! I didn't know ghosts could be…I didn't realise it would make any difference," he hisses back. Up ahead the branches start thinning, and light starts filtering through the leaves.

"That doesn't matter, you should have trusted me to believe you. I could have, I could have helped somehow." Tatsuki's face is spotting red, and her hands are clenched by her side.

Ichigo instinctively hunches his shoulders in to protect his chest and face from her anger.

"Who is she, anyways?" she continues, nodding towards the humming form of Saki.

Ichigo licks chapped lips and frowns.

"She says her name is Saki, but I don't believe it. She's some sort of ghost, but not like the ones you see usually. She knows things, and she can fight." He glances towards the woman furtively.

"Fight what?" Tatsuki prompts, voice rising.

"Why don't you take a look yourself," Saki says ahead of them, looking back just as they break through the forest into a glade.

There's old lamps strewn about, lighting the surroundings up even though there's no electricity. Old bottles litter the ground, some still full. A pile of scrap metal sits in one corner and towers above them.

What catches their attention and keeps it though, is the giant white creature chained in the middle. Red markings run down it's mask, and the leathery skin is dotted with scales and tuffs of fur.

Tatsuki takes a sharp breath and stops, trembling. Ichigo doesn't blame her.

He's wondering how Saki was able to catch it and keep it from making any noise. Most of the ones he's seen are loud, screeches and roars and thunderous steps. This one hangs suspended, quiet. It would look dead if it weren't for the fact that he knows for a fact that they dissolve after death.

"This here is a Hollow, a corrupted soul. They eat anything with a high enough Reiryoku, which includes those who can see spirits. There's two ways to defeat one, by cleansing it's soul and releasing it back into the reincarnation stream, or by annihilating it completely. Both require destroying its mask. Ichigo, if you would demonstrate?" Saki turns toward them.

"Me?" he asks, blinking. "But I—"

"What do you mean 'but', you got permission from your power, did you not? You know how to sense Reishi, do you not?" she interrupts, pushing him forward and thumping one hand on Tatsuki to stop her from joining him.

"Don't worry, it can't escape my chains. All you have to do is concentrate your power and summon your weapon. I've shown you how, haven't I?" Her eyes narrow, "Of course, if you feel like you need some motivation I can always release it and have death determine your ability."

Ichigo shakes his head frantically. He frowns and turns towards the Hollow, drawing his attention inwards. He remembers what Saki did to the schoolyard, knows that if he can only concentrate on that feeling he should be able to recreate what she did.

Under Saki's hand, Tatsuki struggles.

"Wait a minute! You're not going to make him fight that thing?" she argues, trying to break free. Saki grins at her.

"Originally, I might have. Your friend does best when under pressure, as I'm sure you know. He's at his most powerful when he thinks he is protecting someone. But alas, I can't babysit him and figure out your power." She winks.

Tatsuki slows her struggles.

"My power?" she asks slowly. Saki nods.

"You can see me, which means you have more than a small amount of spiritual power. How you can use it though, is something we will have to find out. I have a suspicion you aren't like Ichi-kun here."

"What do you—"

A bright light interrupts them, dust blowing back from the centre of the clearing. Tatsuki flinches back, but Saki turns towards it and cackles.

Arcs of Reishi stream across the concentrating boy, hand reaching out. A pure ball of white light hovers in his palm, but he doesn't seem to have noticed. His eyes are closed and his mouth turned down, sweat dripping down his face.

His limbs shake, and slowly the ball starts growing. It starts burning brighter and brighter, almost forming a shape, until with a sudden flash of sparks, it explodes. The boy gets flung back.

Tatsuki squeaks, and Ichigo's eyes snap open.

"Ouch!" he hisses, waving his smoking hand around.

"Ichigo!" Tatsuki cries, wrenching herself away from Saki.

"I'm fine," the boy groans, sitting up, "what happened, I thought I had it?"

"You would need much better control than that, my dear apprentice. A pity, I guess this monster won't be dying today," Saki hums, floating over.

"I can do it!" Ichigo cries, jumping to his feet.

"Oh? I suppose you can try. In the meantime, me and your friend here are going to have a talk, you stay here and be good." Saki grabs Tatsuki by her arm again and drags her around the still breathing form of the Hollow.

"Wait!" Ichigo yelps, but it's too late and both of them disappear into the dark. He stands blinking at the empty clearing.

"…Should I go after her?" he asks the air.

—

Ghost and girl enter the forest again, not having far too go before Saki thumps Tasuki down on an overturned log and looks expectantly at her.

Tatsuki rubs her arms and glares up at the woman.

"I'm sure you have questions, but before that we should discuss the price for my knowledge. You remember what I said about Ichigo earlier," Saki tells her, crossing her legs mid air, "about him being stronger when he has something to protect?"

"Yeah?" the girls mutters slowly.

"I want you to stop that."

"What?!" Tatsuki hisses, leaning forward, "why?"

"It's a bad habit of his, and it's going to get him killed. He's going to start thinking he's the strongest person of all his allies, that he's responsible for their wellbeing and safety. He'll become blind to anyone else's power." The corner of Saki's lips turn down.

"Which is why you need to get powerful enough he doesn't think he needs to protect you. Ideally, you need to be even more powerful than he is, so he's constantly chasing after you," she continues.

Tatsuki shakes her head.

"I don't know what you are talking about, but if you thought for even a second I was going to let myself fall behind him, you're wrong. That's not even a price," she says with a frown.

Saki grins.

"Good. In that case, I will do my utmost to teach you. Everything. We should probably start with determining what your power is, and what your fighting style is. I can already tell that Ichi-kun is going to be more suited to a bladed style, but you look like a martial fighter," she hums.

Tatsuki startles.

"Karate, I do karate."

Saki nods.

"A start, but we're going to have to go farther than that. I can test what the basis of your spiritual power and build off of that, but before we do that we should strengthen its presences. You'll have to catch up with Ichigo fast, that boy doesn't know the meaning of restraint."


End file.
